Oh hi! I am once again waiting for the HVAC professionals to arrive at my home! My furnace worked for two days. Then we had a day of beautiful sunshiney 79-degree weather and the interior of my house transformed into a sauna, so I turned on the air conditioning. Which didn’t work. This morning, my husband thought to check whether the furnace would work… and it did not work either. We have neither heat nor air conditioning. I am very glad today’s forecast is for mild temps, but… What is happening?????
Sidebar, since I was already moaning to you last week about pest woes: We opened the windows to help cool the house last night, and when I got into bed I noticed that approximately ten zillion miniature flying critters had taken up residence inside my lampshade, on the wall around my lamp, and on the ceiling directly above my lamp. I suspect they were tiny moths or other light-loving insects. I examined the screen nearest my bed and discovered that there is a large rip in it. It was past one (I fell asleep at my desk while working), so I did not have any energy to do a single thing about the moths. I turned off my lamp and went to bed, hoping they wouldn’t swarm me while I slept. This morning, they were gone. Where… did they go? I closed the window with the broken screen, so they didn’t exit that way. They don’t seem to have congregated around any of the nightlights. But… where are they? On the scale of pest awfulness, a million tiny moths doesn’t really register… but I am still very concerned. Am I going to open a seldom-used closet one of these days and find a full-fledged moth hive, pulsing with winged bugs?
MOVING RAPIDLY AWAY FROM THAT HORRIFYING IMAGE. I am in desperate need of groceries, but I’m afraid to leave the house lest the HVAC person choose that moment to show up. (They are supposed to give me a 30-minute window, but, in my experience, it is more like, “Oh, hey, I’m five minutes away!”)
Let’s turn our thoughts away from the specter of replacing BOTH air conditioner and furnace and to the much more comforting prospect of food!
Dinners for the Week of April 15-April 21
Taquito Enchiladas: I am pretty sure Sarah inspired this one, as I never in a million years would have thought to do this myself. But I am newly in possession of a bag of chicken taquitos from Costco and I really, really want to see if this easy delicious-sounding meal is as easy and delicious as I hope it will be.
Pasta Primavera: It’s that time of year again when I want ALL THE VEGGIES. I will sauté whatever I can find – asparagus! zucchini! broccoli! peas! – and add it to some protein pasta with a ton of lemon juice and parmesan. YUM.
Sheet Pan Red Curry Chicken and Veggies: This recipe calls for butternut squash, which I will probably sub out for… something else. Broccoli and cauliflower? Green beans?
Carla is back in the throes of Multiple Extracurriculars, now that spring sports have begun, so we will also be eating some junk food this week – some sort of fast-food chicken or burger, we’ll see. I am not a big fan of eating fast food on the regular, but sometimes it is the best and easiest option. This season of eating fast food multiple times per week won’t last forever, so I will try to lean into it as best I can.
And just like that, it’s mid-April! Many apologies for being MIA lately, internet! I miss you! (And I fully intend to catch up on what you’re up to.) This is one of those pell-mell times of the year, where I feel like I’m being propelled down a steep hill and can barely get my feet under me. All (mostly?) good things, but this is the first Fun Writing I’ve done in… three weeks maybe? When I go to open a document in Word, NONE of my recent files are my blog document, is what that means. (Yes, I type all my posts in Word and then transfer [some of] them to WordPress.)
Seems like a good day for a quick catch-up. And then I need to find a solid week or so to go back and read ALL OF YOUR POSTS, omg, I feel so out of the loop.
1. I am spending today as we all hope our Fridays go: waiting for the HVAC service technician to show up. Why, yes, that was sarcasm, and yes, our furnace IS dead. I’m glad it’s not, like, January, but it is currently 45 degrees F outside and the internal temperature of my house has dropped to 65. Perfect weather for walking on the treadmill while I cross two items on my to-do list off simultaneously!
Our furnace is 23 years old, if it is a day, so it’s no spring chicken. But we did just have the HVAC people in here this February to give it a checkup, so I’m feeling a little grumpy that it’s acting up now. Back in February, I asked the HVAC guy to give me a prognosis on the lifespan on my furnace, and he said, “Well, I can’t guarantee anything – it could stop working tomorrow! But it seems like it’s in good shape and you could get another ten years out of it.” Not sure why I didn’t hear the foreboding music swell in the background of this little pronouncement.
2. While I drank my breakfast (which was a smoothie and a mug of green tea, not, like, whiskey), I whacked away at my to-do list a bit more. It’s at that out-of-control point again, where things keep piling up until I am buried under their weight. The section I tackled today was Making Routine Doctors’ Appointments. Well, some of them were routine. Like I got Carla scheduled for her annual well visit and her annual eye exam (which we somehow skipped last year????). I also left a message on my doctor’s prescription line to follow up on a refill that I requested earlier this week. That last one took two calls because I got through three menu trees and clicked on “leave a message for Dr. X” and then had to listen to a recording that said this was the place to leave questions for the nurse, NOT the place to leave refill requests, so I had to go through all the phone menus again. And! Most exciting of all: I scheduled an ear piercing appointment for Carla! This will be her Big Birthday Present this year. She has been ramping up the requests to have her ears pierced over the past six to twelve months, and she has really made strides in Being Responsible (she has a necklace she wears daily that has so far always come home with her; she has a dental appliance she has to care for). Plus, she got a pair of nice-quality clip on earrings from her grandmother last fall, and she wears them regulary. So I think she is ready for pierced ears. I, however, am NOT ready for pierced ears. I have never had pierced ears, or any sort of piercing, and the whole thing a) squicks me out and b) makes me extremely nervous. I am squeamish and blood/body stuff makes me woozy. I am comforted by Carla’s swift and independent handling of her dental appliance; I have never had to touch it or adjust a single rubber band, and her orthodontist says she is doing great, so I am going to trust that between her and my husband, she’ll figure out how to care for HOLES in her BODY.
Still on the list are many additional phone calls, which I will probably avoid some more. I need to call the landscaper, make an appointment to get my car serviced, call someone to come look at our oven, call the trash collection service about whether they will collect some unusual items (paint cans and gutter guards), hire a lifeguard for Carla’s birthday party, and get some estimates to get the exterior of our house painted. Also on my list: a work project, two rather major projects for my volunteering role, a message for a family member’s Big Birthday Memory Book, finding photos of Carla for a school project, making decisions about and then scheduling a couple of other healthcare-type things, and, most daunting of all: figuring out how to order breakfast for an out-of-town group event at which I will not be present, in a town I have never visited and know nothing about.
3. A phone call I already made this week? Scheduling an appointment with our new pest control service. Even though we live, like, twenty miles away from our old neighborhood, the locations are different enough that they seem to have totally different pest problems. At our old house, we had silverfish; at this house, we have ants, stinkbugs, mice, and bats. “Probably you had rats, too,” the pest control guy said helpfully. But since in twelve years I never once saw a rat, or any sign of such, I refuse to acknowledge this as a possibility.
While he is from the same pest control company that handled our mouse problem when we first moved into this house, he is not the same person. He tells me he was injured last fall and on leave. But he used to do pest control for the previous owners, which was useful because he knew exactly where to go and what the problem areas were. He also kind of implied that the previous owners canceled a ton of their appointments, so he wasn’t surprised we had such a huge mouse infestation when we moved in. While I feel deeply uncomfortable with service people sharing qualms about their other customers, I do feel a little bit justified in my growing belief that the previous owners did not really take care of this place. Lots and lots of things have looked lovely on the surface and then turn out to be falling apart behind the scenes, and the repeated cancellation of regular home maintenance stuff helps explain that. Don’t get me wrong – they seem like lovely people, and I get the impression they are just very busy and travel a lot. And who knows! Maybe they had other stuff they were dealing with, and/or once they decided to move, they simply stopped keeping things up. I will tell you, while I am NOT EXCITED about bats or mice, I do prefer the tiny little ants and the occasional stinkbug to silverfish.
4. Did you know you can make queso dip out of cottage cheese? Possibly you already knew this, but I only just tried it. It was marvelous. I don’t know how “healthy” it was, especially because I ate it with tortilla chips. But it was easy and much higher in protein than covering my chips in shredded cheese while being just as delicious.
5. Speaking of things I have recently tried and loved, I have FINALLY found a travel pillow that allows me to sleep on the airplane! Sleeping is really the only way I can fly, because I find the entire experience so anxiety-producing. But I am not a person who can lean back against the questionably clean headrest or use a travel pillow. My head insists on flopping forward, no matter what, and each time it falls, I snap awake. It is neither comfortable nor restful and it’s kind of embarrassing, to be honest. I have tried so many travel pillows. So many. None of them work. But then! My husband ordered a TRTL travel pillow to use on our flights to and from spring break (four-ish hours each way) and on our first flight, he let me use it… and it WORKS. My head can rest gently in a forward position but there is enough support to prevent flopping AND it doesn’t make my neck ache! I did feel like a moron, winding it around my neck like I was bracing for arctic winds, but it was well worth it! I used it on the flight home, too, and it is now mine, all mine.
Okay, in the time since I drafted this post, I got a phone call (friend with whom I exchanged phone numbers for my phenomenal roof/siding person; being an adult is weird), made a phone call (oven repair person is scheduled!), wrapped two birthday presents, unloaded the dishwasher, tidied the kitchen, welcomed the furnace repair person into my home, threw some ice cubes into the dryer to refresh the clothes I dried last night and forgot about, discovered that my front door will BLOW OPEN unless it is locked, tossed a load of laundry in the washing machine, and agreed to pay to have a new transformer installed in my furnace. I think I hear the heater doing its thing!
It’s March! A new month! Spring is inching ever closer! I am feeling so much better today. No fever, and I SLEPT last night, which is everything. I still have no voice to speak of (ha, unintentional pun!), which is more annoying than I anticipated (our house has a lot of stairs and I tend to holler at people rather than walking to where they are which is EFFICIENT) and this infection has fully settled in my chest, so I am coughing at ALL TIMES. (Do you have a go-to cough drop/cough syrup? I have been drinking a LOT of green tea with honey but I think I need to pull out the big guns.)
I am feeling a little KEYED UP, I feel so much better, is what I’m saying. Like maybe I’ve had a full pot of espresso or a fistful of cocaine instead of three sips of my normal tea and zero cocaine. So I guess… Prepare yourself for even more exclamation marks than usual. (I added an exclamation mark after that sentence, then deleted it. It looks mean, now. Mean!!!!)
Let’s have some Friday bullets, shall we?!
1. With all of my Feeling Better Verve, I am making muffins. We had some sad bananas on the counter (we have the Proverbial Banana Problem of either going through bananas more quickly than we can supply them or ending up with an entire bunch slowly liquifying on the counter. So the first order of business is banana chocolate chip muffins, which are in the oven as I type! I have still not gotten around to making the apple cinnamon muffins I mentioned a while back, but I have left all the muffin making ingredients on the counter (which makes me itchy) AND I have already washed all the muffin making equipment (bowls, measuring devices) to prompt me to make Batch 2 as soon as the banana muffins are done. Why not make them simultaneously? Why not, indeed! It is because I have only one set of silicone muffin cups and they are currently in service. Clearly, I need to get another set! These muffins are intended for the freezer – I mean, that’s my intent for them; I can’t speak for the recipe writers – and I find I prefer to reheat a naked muffin rather than try to disrobe a frozen muffin in a paper wrapper. This reminds me that I would love a better muffin freezing solution than the one I have (Tupperware rectangle). Surely Amazon has a product that is designed for this highly specific need? YES! Do I need a muffin fresh storage container just for this purpose? Yes, I think I do!
2. The only problem with making muffins is my oven. I think I have mentioned before that we have two ovens (!!!!!) and that neither of those ovens heats properly (womp womp). For instance, my banana chip muffins required a baking temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I set the oven to 450 degrees. When it had reached approximately 325 degrees, my oven alerted me that it had come to temperature. Yes, I get it, we’re all eager for muffins. (I only know the “real” temperature because we got a thermometer to put inside the oven.) This would be sort of okay if the oven held a consistent temperature difference – like, if I set it to 450 but it reliably stayed at 350. (Although that would be problematic for dishes that require a temperature of 450, because the oven dial only goes to 525.) Except, no, it does not do that. It slowly continues to heat. This is true of both ovens! BOTH! I hate it, thanks. Let’s be clear, though: I do not want to replace the ovens. Especially because one of them is a Big Fancy Oven that costs more money than I care to imagine. But I also can’t go on like this. I suppose what this means is Another Phone Call!!!! Woo!
3. It’s that time again: I need new walking shoes. I don’t know WHAT I do to my shoes, but at some point, the vertical section of shoe that wraps around the back of your heel inevitably fails. And by “fails” I mean there is a big hole through which the plastic starts poking painfully. Do I have horns sprouting from the backs of my heels? I am contemplating ordering another pair of Brooks Ghost shoes – they are what I was using, and I liked them. They are also a lower price on Amazon than I’ve seen them. But maybe I just want a cheapo pair of Asics? These are the shoes I wear around the house all day every day and I like them just fine.
4. We keep inching our way toward finishing Carla’s room renovation. Well. Not really a “renovation,” per say. We have painted the walls and bought a bunch of decor and are now trying to make her space usable. In this house, she has ample space: an enormous bedroom PLUS an enormous craft/toy room. It is The Dream, truly. Unfortunately, we haven’t figured out yet how to make them workable for what she likes to do. (“Crafting all over her bedroom” is NOT THE ANSWER.) The craft room is a big mess right now (but behind a door so I don’t have to see it!!!!). We want to get her a drafting chair so that it’s easier for her to work at her crafting “table” (which is a door balanced on top of several storage units). We want to move one of our couches into that space (we got a new couch for the basement, so now we have too many couches), to give it a cozier feel. She also requested a second bean bag chair. And we want to organize everything so that all the paper and foam and pompoms and markers have A Specific Home. (Do you think we need a label maker for organization purposes? I’ve wanted a label maker for a long time but haven’t made it past putting various label makers in my various digital shopping carts.) It’s a big project and we’ve been limping toward the finish line for a long time. Will this be the weekend we complete it?!?! Probably not, but a girl can hope!!!!
5. Speaking of things I keep wanting to buy but haven’t yet, I am feeling lately like I NEED a stick blender with a cup attachment. Probably I don’t, considering I already have an immersion blender (which I cannot find! they all seem to come with cup attachments now!) and a regular blender, which came with a smaller cup I use for making dressings and single serve smoothies. But it looks so useful! So many delicious recipes on Instagram are made with one of these guys!
Okay, if I continue in this vein I am going to spend too much money and wear out my 1 key. By the way, the muffins are done (and I have left the oven on, set to 375 and the temperature seems to have evened out at 350), my child is awake (and off from school today, whoo five day weekend!!!!!), and I need to go make muffin batch number two!
Tell me something you want to buy but haven’t yet done so.
Happy Leap Day, Internet! I am spending this extra day trying to decide whether the benefits of cold medicine (reduced headache, mild cough suppression, drying of the sinuses) outweigh the ill effects (drowsiness, zombie brain).
We had a good run of it, Internet. And by “it” I mean good health. Carla’s class has apparently been stricken by a boatload of illnesses and, after volunteering at a school event last week, I have brought one home.
It started Sunday with a sore throat, then moved along through the normal URI progression, so I thought I was getting better. But today I woke up with no voice and a fever of 101.5. I feel like someone is trying to escape the inside of my skull by hacking at it with a pickaxe and he’s standing right on my lungs while he hammers away.
Carla was fine at first, but woke up with a fever yesterday, so she is home with me for the second day. So far it doesn’t seem to have hit her quite as hard. She’s feverish but cheerful. And sniffly. I hope her illness goes in the proper direction, though.
I am bummed because I had weekend plans, but even if I do feel better by then, I am sure to be hacking up a lung which doesn’t sound pleasant for me or those around me.
This post is not about me whining about being sick though. It is a celebration of productivity!
I know you are dying to know whether the internet magic of mentioning something on my blog made it happen, and it did! Via the power of public humiliation (although you made me feel understood rather than humiliated), I have made some progress on my to-do list.
While my preference would have been for Suz to come over and tackle my to-do list for me (you DID offer, Suz), I decided to take Jenny’s advice and do a Power Hour.
In my house, a Power Hour is a way to gamify a to-do list. I have heretofore only used it on my daughter, and pretty much only as a cleaning challenge. Although, to be fair, she will not do a Power Hour unless I am also doing a Power Hour – she is a competitive being – so I end up doing one alongside her. We haven’t done one in a while. But I have never really made myself do a Power Hour.
Monday, I came home from school drop-off and took a nap until 11:00, then allowed my guilt for napping to propel me into a Power Hour. I will tell you, first, that the Power Hour is a misnomer because it took THREE HOURS.
1. First, I made a list on my new custom notepads that my husband and daughter got me for my birthday.
2. Instead of calling the landscaper, I instead looked up an email she’d sent me in August with a recommendation for a tree trimming/removal company. I had called them, around that time; there’d been a storm that wreaked havoc on a lot of local trees, so the tree service said they would call me back and then never did.
I called the tree company and someone is coming out to look at the tree in question and offer an estimate. Should I call someone else to come give a second estimate? Probably.
3. Gigi said I needed to handle the rot in my siding sooner rather than later, so that was next on my list. She’d suggested calling a general contractor, so I spent some time looking at previous texts with friends whom I’d asked for contractor suggestions. None of them seemed right, and one of them mysteriously has NO Internet presence at all. Like… his name doesn’t exist on the internet. And it’s an odd name with an unusual spelling – something like Grygg – and I know the spelling I used was accurate because the friend who’d recommended him said, “Oh, I spelled his name wrong in the contact I shared; it’s Grygg instead of Gryyg.” Nonetheless, neither spelling came up with ANY hits online.
So I turned instead to people who deal with gutters. This is what Marg had to do, at an approximate cost of $1500 for a similar issue. (THANK YOU, Marg, for the benchmark pricing!) We had our gutters cleaned regularly at our old house, and it was fairly reasonable price-wise, but the REAL price was in future phone and text spam from the company. So I didn’t want to call them. Moving has been a nice excuse to part ways with some companies I felt bad about parting ways with. I looked up some highly rated gutter service companies in our area and then called.
The person who answered at the first place was so kind. I said that I had no idea whether she could help me, and she said, “Well, let’s just see!” and I explained my problem, and it WAS something she seemed familiar with. She even gave me an estimate for replacing that rotted wood right off the top of her head ($475 in case you are wondering). But then she told me that sometimes getting all of your gutters cleaned can help address the problem, and that adjusting the gutter would be part of the cost of that ($495 in case you are wondering). I don’t think replacing the rotted wood would necessarily have been part of the gutter cleaning cost, but then again, I’d be getting ALL the gutters cleaned, which needs to be done anyway. She was so warm and knowledgeable that I wanted to book her right then and there, but… well, I have been swayed by warm and knowledgeable people before (I’m looking at you, Guy Who Said I Needed to Replace My Garage Doors When Really They Only Needed a Small Much-Less-Costly Adjustment), so I told her I would talk it over with my husband and call her back.
Gutter person number two was also very nice. He immediately asked if I could text him pictures of the issue and I did. But then he wanted to continue the conversation via text, which was a little less satisfying than being on the phone? I think, mainly, because a) we were discussing terms I wasn’t familiar with and b) the guy is not quite so wordy as I am (shocker) nor as wordy as I would prefer he be in responses. He said he thinks the issue is that “it” (the gutter?) just needs to be “pitched toward the downspout,” all of which are words I think I understand, but am not 100% sure I know exactly what that means? He can also replace the rotted wood and he is coming out to look more closely and give me an estimate.
4. On to the pool service task! I had one recommendation from a friend, one company my husband had suggested, and another company the previous owners’ pool guy had suggested (note: we used the previous owners’ pool guy last year and he does not provide the cleaning/maintenance we are looking for, plus he is impossible to deal with – like, he will just show up unannounced in the backyard). I called and left messages at each company. I believe I have left messages with each of these companies before; only the friend-recommended guy ever called me back, and then said his brother would be in touch, and then the brother never got in touch. WHY IS THIS IMPOSSIBLE?
5. There is a drip in our furnace. Plus, I got a text that said this was my LAST CHANCE to schedule the free furnace maintenance that comes with my membership to the HVAC company. I was confused, because I am SURE that we had someone come out last fall to look at the furnace; I remember very clearly because he told me that I was still eligible to get the extended warranty on the furnace, and then I called the warranty company and they needed my title within 90 days of the home sale, and the title hadn’t arrived, and I went back and forth with the title company and eventually we got the title but it was after the 90 days. So. No extended warranty on the furnace.
But I looked in my calendar, and it said the same company did an air conditioner inspection last September, so perhaps that’s what I was thinking of? So I called the HVAC company (my god this is a VERY BORING POST but somehow I cannot curb my desire to write out all the tiresome details) and the cheery gal I spoke to said yes, it had been an A/C checkup. So we scheduled a furnace inspection. Whew.
6. Next! I first updated our family calendar with all the important dates from my daughter’s 2024-25 school calendar. Good lord, there are a lot of days off. Like, so many days off. Then I called the dentist and scheduled her next checkup. This, if you are keeping track, is the only actual task I have completed.
7. Then I turned to the electrician, which has a very convoluted backstory. The TL;DR version is that I successfully scheduled an appointment for the electrician to come out and address multiple issues. The slightly longer version is that the company that we use has a very complex system that probably makes a lot of sense to them but is difficult to deal with. One person comes out to see what’s wrong, another person prepares an estimate for you and works with you to figure out exactly what work you want to do, then a whole other person schedules the appointment with you. On the day of the Power Hour, it took me multiple phone calls and multiple emails across multiple hours to finalize the work order and schedule a day for someone to come out.
8. I wrote a check to the orthodontist and put it in my car. I still need to take the check to the orthodontist’s office, but that can be done at a later time.
9. I followed up on a work email (and have still not heard back siiiighhhhhh).
10. Bonus task! I talked to Carla’s teacher on the phone and then made a follow-up phone call based on our conversation.
These were the tasks I got through before it was time to pick up Carla from school. (Although I did exchange three separate phone calls, two texts, and an email with the electrician and the estimate person while in the car, so that was fun.) (The email and texts I handled while in the car line, not while driving.)
All in all, it was a productive Power Hour. But do you see, Internet? DO YOU SEE WHY I HATE THESE TASKS?
I would like to note once again for the record that I spent THREE HOURS Power Houring my way through all these phone calls and emails and to-do lists and I accomplished one thing. Yes, yes, I got a lot of other things underway. But NOTHING ELSE is complete.
And there are still so many, many items at which to pick away.
One of those tasks is to call the hair salon and schedule an appointment for my husband. Since I have no voice, Carla is going to get to learn how to schedule an appointment today. Which is clearly a crucial skill every human must master.
The weather report SWEARS we will have sunshine this weekend, but so far the only sun I’ve seen was this past Thursday. It’s early yet, but the clouds are not filling my heart with hope. The pervasive grey is inspiring nothing but an intense desire to curl up in bed and read murder mysteries, but let’s try some random bullet points and see what comes of it.
A Little Light Shopping. Speaking of my unending desire to read: I continue to buy new books while simultaneously continuing to reread Sophie Hannah’s Culver Valley mystery series, which I already own. (I am on Book 10, The Next to Die, out of 11 so far.) My husband is baffled by my insistence on reading old books when I have so many shiny new ones to hand. But it makes sense to me. I get to indulge in a series I adore (I am finding that I am enjoying these all on a reread even more than I did the first time, although I do find myself weary of Charlie and Simon’s relationship). Plus, I get to fill my book shelves with happy little treats to look forward to. Best of all worlds!
Light Therapy. I went outside for a walk four days this week, which is more than I’ve been able to muster lately. I KNOW that being outside, in the fresh air, surrounded by birdsong and trees, boosts my mental health. But sometimes it’s just HARD to do the thing. My parents go for a walk outside pretty much every single day, rain or shine or snow or sleet, and that’s deeply inspiring to me. But STILL. Wanting to do the thing, knowing the thing is good for me and will make me feel better, does not always lead to Doing The Thing.
Thursday, we had actual honest-to-goodness sun and I made sure to take advantage of it. I walked around my neighborhood and came upon an older woman walking ahead of me. She was all bundled up in a winter jacket and gloves, hood pulled up over her hair. I tried to do all the things I could think of to alert her of my presence – scraping my feet on the gravel, coughing – but when she turned around (I was still a good ten feet behind her) she jumped and said “Oh!” in a startled way. I apologized for scaring her and we chatted for a few minutes. During which time she told me I needed to COVER UP. (I was wearing long pants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt; it was nearly 50 degrees.) Turns out she was concerned not about cold but about skin cancer, about which I am not cavalier, I promise. But I also need those sun rays to soak into my skin and stimulate all that yummy vitamin D production (I have no idea what I’m talking about, just to be clear). I assured her I was wearing sunscreen but I probably should be better about wearing a hat to protect my scalp.
Light Switches: My dad and I replaced some faulty light switches this week, which is one of those projects that feels SO thrilling to complete. It was surprisingly easy, once I got past the fear of electrocuting myself. (We turned off the power before we opened things up; I hope that is obvious.) Our next project will be to install some light fixtures in the furnace room, which is bafflingly lightless. To that end, one of my purchases this week was a roll of copper wiring. My future as an electrician grows ever closer.
Fake Light. I have been encouraged by a trusted professional to look into buying myself a light therapy lamp. This does not mean I have been diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder – I have not; and when I looked at the reviews of SAD lamps she sent me, I became perhaps overly concerned by the stern warning that only people who have SAD or who are under direction from a medical professional should use one of these lamps. And then a friend, who recently HAS been diagnosed with SAD, said she just started using a light therapy lamp and is having awful side effects – headaches and sleep loss. So now I don’t know what to do. Should I buy this lamp and hope for the best??? Or ramp up my efforts to be outside every day?
Lumos! While we’re apparently on the inexhaustible topic of lighting, one of my favorite things are the smart plugs my husband installed on all of our lamps. I can either ask Siri to turn on the lights or use my phone to turn them on, and it’s delightful. So I can be finished reading in bed and just say, sleepily, “Siri, turn off my bedroom lights” and the lamps will extinguish. Or I can be carrying my book and a full mug of tea down the hall and call out to the Echo in the kitchen, “Siri, turn on my office light” and it will be on when I reach my comfy chair. It makes me feel a teeny bit like I live in Hogwarts.
Light of My Life: My husband, daughter, and I went out to dinner recently, and Carla was enamored with the paintings on the wall. She insisted on taking my phone so she could preserve her memory of the paintings for infinity. (She will never look at these photos again.) She is such a delight.
Lightening the Mood. A friend sent me this clip of an SNL spoof on Stanley mugs. When I subsequently saw this display of Josh wine at Target, I cracked up. Get in there, Josh.
I am off to meet a friend, which is one of the best ways to illuminate these cloudy days; the prospect of seeing her has been a bright beacon to get me through yet another gloomy week.
I hope your weekend is full of light in many forms.
One of the fewonly FUN things about buying a new house is designing all the new spaces. And it has been (mainly) fun to pick out paint colors and new flooring. But what I am really excited about is making these new rooms match up to the vision in my mind.
I think my daughter’s room will be the first room to be the most finished. We are in the process of painting her walls, which is very exciting, and then we can decorate her bedroom.
Some point last spring, Carla decided that her favorite color was no longer black, it’s turquoise. Which thrills me, by the way. Not that buying all-black clothing didn’t have a lot of benefits. But I love the color turquoise and I’m really excited that she loves such a fun, vibrant color.
Since she’s on the cusp of teenagery (gulp!), I am also hoping that we can decorate her room in a way that feels fun and Age Ten Appropriate, but will easily transition into the teen years with her.
For the wall colors, we are going with black and white. Yes, I know I just said that Carla’s favorite color is no longer black. But when my husband and I were going to open houses last spring, we saw a teen bedroom that was TO DIE FOR and we immediately knew that Carla would love it. So one wall of Carla’s room will be black and the rest of the walls will be bright white. All of her existing furniture (desk, bed, dresser, and bookcase) are white. And then we’ll accent everything with turquoise.
The only problem with turquoise, I find, is that there are so many varieties of the color. Where does aqua begin and turquoise end? I do not know. So finding colors that match is tricky. Finding colors that coordinate is less tricky, but it does seem like there are opportunities for clashing.
Here’s sort of what the paint result will look like (except her room is bigger than this space, so there’s more white than in this photo):
image from home-designing.com
Now for the fun part. All the accessories that will make her room super cool and cozy!
Bedding: Getting Carla a new comforter and pillowcases is going to be the easiest way to add color to her room. I love this duvet cover: simple and vibrant.
image from amazon.com
But this duvet cover is so fun. I love how colorful it is. I wonder if Carla would think it’s too babyish?
image from amazon.com
If she prefers a solid color, I also like this option, but the color may be a little too intense.
image from macys.com
Oh wow, I am in love with the soft color and amazing texture of this quilt set.
This throw/blanket is super pretty. I realize none of these things work together, but… I will figure that out in time.
image from target.com
Desk: Carla’s old desk is a remnant from the pandemic. It worked great for her during Zoom School, and she has used it plenty for drawing, but now it’s time to get her a real Big Kid desk.
I like this desk a lot, but the price tag makes me want to die.
image from pbteen.com
This is a smaller version of the same desk, but it also seems WAY TOO EXPENSIVE for what it is.
image from pbteen.com
This desk is much more budget friendly, although I have no experience of buying things from Wayfair.
image from wayfair.com
Desk Chair: I love this turquoise desk chair. We will probably have to get a plastic chair mat/carpet protector to go under it though, since it has wheels.
image from amazon.com
This desk chair is cute and seems a little more pre-teen-ish than the other option. No arms though… which is good for practicing the guitar, but I’m not sure if it’s great for studying?
image from wayfair.com
Or she can use the ball chair that we got her during the remote learning days. It’s a very light turquoise (much lighter than the image leads you to believe), so it still works with the color scheme.
Comfy Seating: I think Carla would get a big kick out of this beanbag chair. I can picture her curling up in it to read.
image from amazon.com
From a practicality-meets-cute standpoint, I am loving this futon. It’s the right color, it folds up into a chair, but it can fold out into a twin bed for the inevitable future sleepovers. Or at the very least, her cousin can use it when she visits us for holidays.
image from amazon.com
I also like this armchair. Is it maybe a little too grown up?
image from amazon.com
Wall Décor: I think it will be useful to break up the white walls a bit with some pops of color.
I LOVE this backlit mirror, although there is no way it will fit our budget. (We do not yet have a budget for Carla’s room; this is just the brainstorming, anything goes, phase.) (Why are mirrors so $$$$$?)
image from pbteen.com
A full-length mirror would be more practical than a pricey wall mirror. This one is the right color (though not in stock); I will keep looking.
image from amazon.com
This clock is cool. Perhaps it would inspire Carla to be on time more often??? I can’t deal with clocks because the ticking sound overwhelms me, but a) I am probably an anomaly and b) this is supposed to be a quiet, tick-free clock.
image from amazon.com
I don’t quite know how I will feel about these wall decals in practice, but they are COOL and the exact right colors and I bet Carla would love tossing them up on one of her walls.
image from amazon.com
Here’s another thing that seems cool as an idea, but I’m not sure I’d love it in reality: a custom neon wall sign. This one has an ice blue option that seems like it would color coordinate with Carla’s room… but… what would it say? Where would it go? Would there be unsightly cords all over the place?
Curtains: The new house came with blinds on all the windows, so window are pretty much already covered (pun), but… It might be fun to have black blackout curtains???? I mean, how dramatic are these?!
Towels: I would also love to get Carla a set of new towels. Turquoise… but maybe also a set of purple ones? For guests? (Her bathroom will be pale purple.)
This is the week my parents move to my state, which is extremely exciting. And yet everything – everything!!! – seems to be going wrong for them. I am so furious at the community to which they are moving, which in my opinion seems to have the viewpoint that their clients should feel LUCKY to be paying them money, and should not complain about things like borked timelines and shoddy workmanship and complete lack of transparency about EVERYTHING, because there are a bunch of people lined up and ready to take the abuse that my parents are objecting to. I really could go on and on about their experience, which has been a shitshow and I do not use that word lightly. But I can’t do anything about it, and nor can my parents who have already paid a lot of money for the privilege of being jerked around. My ONLY HOPE is that this moving-in nonsense is all the fault of the one seemingly incompetent person in charge of bringing new residents into the community, and that once my parents are finally settled they will find it to be a lovely place that doesn’t suck.
Anyway, while my blood pressure surges with impotent rage, I thought I might type some things.
It’s been a busy few weeks, and the next few weeks don’t seem to have a whole lot of let-up on the busyness front. But it’s very nearly all good busyness, so I’m trying to focus on that and not on the stressy feelings that I get from being so regularly busy.
Realtor Guilt: My husband and daughter and I continue to look for a new house, which is adding to the busyness because it seems like every week or two we have to drop everything to squeeze in a viewing. We are in the excellent position of not needing a new house; our house and neighborhood are wonderful. But we would all like a little more space. And that has become especially clear lately, because we have had one houseguest and will have two more in a couple of weeks and it’s sadly VERY possible that my parents may also need to stay with us instead of in their newly renovated home which was supposed to be done June 1. No, June 6. No, we really promise June 8. We have a guest room; we have two full bathrooms. This is more than many people have! It really shouldn’t be an issue to have a couple of houseguests, and yet it just feels cramped and crowded when we do. My daughter gives up her bathroom so the guests can use it, and uses our bathroom. And it’s fine, it really is, but it would also be SO NICE if we had a separate bathroom that guests could use. Plus I really, really, really want a mudroom. You know how there’s that saying that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses? In my case, a house could have the most gorgeously appointed gourmet kitchen but if it doesn’t have a proper mudroom I’m not buying.
So we are looking for a house, but it has to be The Exact Right House for us to leave our perfectly wonderful existing home. And that means that we are being SO PICKY. Which leads to my realtor guilt. I love our realtor – she is a very brisk, efficient type of person who gets us in to see whatever we need. But I am a little worried that she secretly hates us. She never acts like it; she’s too much of a pro. But she takes us to see all these spectacular homes and then we find some little stupid thing to nitpick and I wonder if she thinks we are jerking her around. We AREN’T. We actually put an offer in on one of the first houses we had her show us, and she was so surprised that she kept saying, “I didn’t think you were that serious yet!” as we were scrambling to get pre-approved for the mortgage and find a lender and put together an offer on a Sunday night.
This was several months ago now (and we still think about the house that got away), and we have seen probably close to 20 houses. The market is BONKERS. A house pops up on the MLS and then by the next day, it has five offers – all over asking. So if there’s any chance of getting the house we want, it feels like we have to act immediately. And our realtor is great about getting us in right away, even if that’s at night or on the weekend. I am aware that she chose this line of work, and that this is apparently what the job entails, and that at some point whatever commission she makes must make it worthwhile. But I feel SO GUILTY.
Earlier this week, we saw a house at, like, eight in the evening. And it was GORGEOUS. The inside was perfection. The neighborhood was lovely. It had a beautiful pool and outdoor eating set up. And yet… the yard was small and not particularly private, and the lot was on a busy road and near the freeway so there was quite a lot of road noise outdoors. Plus, none of the doors seemed to want to stay open, which was odd. Like, you’d open the closet door and then it would slam closed of its own volition; the office had French doors and one was propped open with a door stop and if you opened the other door it closed by itself. THIS IS HOW PICKY WE ARE BEING.
Anyway. I am just feeling so guilty. Not guilty enough to put an offer in on a house that we aren’t fully in love with, but guilty nonetheless.
Skin Update: My face has been doing pretty well lately. I went to see the dermatologist and he prescribed me a) an antibiotic to take if I ever have a flare up again and b) a sulphur-based face wash. I haven’t tried the face wash yet. My dermatologist said that it smelled of sulphur while using it, but that the scent goes away once your face is dry. The pharmacist said this is a lie. The pharmacist’s wife, apparently, also has rosacea and so he has been able to give me both his professional opinion on the things I’ve tried as well as his personal experience. He says that the face wash smells revolting and that the smell lingers. “Your partner will be able to smell it,” he said, a look of revulsion on his face. How fun for all of us.
Also on the topic of my skin, I am still not eating dairy… although I have been trying to add it back into my diet in dribs and drabs. A little half-and-half here or there… A couple of slices of pizza… A taco with a little cheese sprinkled on. I haven’t noticed any big skin differences, so I am going to keep at it. My acupuncturist says that goat and sheep milk have smaller proteins in it than cow’s milk, so I should start there. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the pizza, with mozzarella that definitely came from a cow. I don’t really MISS dairy, except that I do like pizza and I do occasionally want some mozzarella or goat cheese in my salads. I do sometimes miss yogurt, and I guess maybe the next step is to try a smoothie with yogurt in it.
Note: I have tried almond milk yogurt, which I do not like, and coconut milk yogurt, which is fine. (I cannot eat soy yogurt, so I haven’t tried it.) But I don’t like these non-dairy options enough for how many calories they have, so I’d rather skip yogurt entirely. Also, I tried almond milk sour cream and it was abominable.
SummerMovie Watching: My daughter has a gap between the end of school and the beginning of camp, and I plan to spend our time together doing fun things like going for long walks at the dog park and watching movies. I have decided that as long as we are watching a movie together, it doesn’t count as Excess Screen Time. We have already watched Freaky Friday together, which I think went over pretty well, and Bend It Like Beckham which was both racier than I remembered and also kind of boring, and now I want all your mother-daughter movie recommendations.
I have never seen Little Women, so that’s on my list… but I’m sort of afraid to ruin the book before Carla has a chance to read it. Maybe Thirteen Going On Thirty, which I am pretty sure we watched together several years ago; Carla has no memory of this. Another one we’ve watched together that she doesn’t remember is The Princess Bride, which I would be delighted to watch again. We watched The Labyrinth at some point in the past couple of years, but maybe that would be a good one to rewatch? I’m not as hip to more recent releases, although Carla and I did go to the theatre to see Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (it was just as well done as everyone assured me it would be). Carla loved it and wants to watch it again.
All movies are fair game. Just please don’t suggest E.T. ; she has thankfully already seen it and that is my most-hated movie of all time, right up there with Space Camp and The NeverEnding Story. (My husband watched the latter with Carla fairly recently; I cannot get past the agonizing death of the horse.)
I will say that my big bias against movies these days is content about sex and dating. For some reason, that’s what I find myself wanting to “shield” from Carla (although “shield” isn’t quite the right word), more so than anything else. Probably an impulse that requires more in-depth analysis, but I think on the face of it is that so many movies are so casual about sex and romantic relationships and tend to overelevate their importance. Like… Bend It Like Beckham has this whole side plot about the two soccer players both having the hots for their soccer coach. And… why? Why did that have to be a plot point? There was plenty of conflict already, between the protagonist and her parents, between her and her sister. If there had to be conflict between the two friends, why not make it about soccer? Or the protagonist’s refusal to be honest with her parents? And yes, I know that Bend It is also about how the main character’s culture plays up the importance of traditional values of femininity and marriage and wifeliness, but that was super clear without any sort of reference to shagging one’s soccer coach. (Or calling someone a bitch because she tried to kiss said soccer coach, after you specifically told her you didn’t like him!) And yet I am fine with The Princess Bride, I think? That’s a romance, and Buttercup doesn’t have a whole lot of agency if my memory is correct, but it seems different??? Maybe because the movie is an adventure, and yes, true love is the driving force and the reward, but the adventure is really what the movie IS, right? Am I remembering this correctly?
I don’t know; like I said, I haven’t really examined this bias in any meaningful way yet. Carla is not yet ten. We’ve talked to her about the mechanics of sex and have bought her books that are frank about sex and try to be open about any and all things she’s curious about, so it’s not like sex is a big mystery. Plus, romance and love are wonderful, in fiction and in life, and make for thrilling, excruciating conflict in movies and books. But I guess I don’t love how important sex and dating are in so many movies, especially those from my youth. Maybe I am just hoping to stave off, for a few more years, that all-encompassing, dizzy, yearning feeling of boy craziness I felt from fifth grade straight through until I met my husband???
Calcium Update: Possibly you remember how I regularly freak out about Carla’s poor calcium intake? Well, we have resolved this by simply giving her Tums during the day. (This is what my father suggested a year ago and we have just now come around to it for reasons unknown.) It’s probably not ideal, and she’s probably not getting exactly as much as she needs, but it’s better than nothing. There was a blissful period of time when Carla was regularly eating yogurt. She wanted the yogurt lumps I made back when I was still eating dairy, but they ran out. So she decided to mix raspberry jam and mini chocolate chips into yogurt each morning for breakfast. Yes, I know; high in sugar. But also high in protein and calcium! She has sort of fizzed out on that fad though, but it was really nice while it lasted.
Home Improvements Inch Forward: One of my aspirations for the past couple of years has been to get our house trim painted. And it is DONE. Well, sort of; the person who painted the trim around the garage somehow only painted the trim that faces the driveway; the trim on the sides is not painted. Looks like he sanded the sides and just… forgot them? The painter in charge assures me he will come back, and I really believe that he believes he will… but I think the nature of the jobs he takes on means that it might be a long while before he gets back to us. For instance, he was able to do the trim the same day I reached out to him because he had another job in my neighborhood and he was waiting on the go-ahead from a larger job. Sigh. I am also hoping to have him paint the front door, which is awful and peeling. In fact, I asked him to paint the door when I asked him to paint the trim and there was some sort of misunderstanding. Anyway I hope that he eventually finishes the job. We shall see. He did our deck last year and it still looks good, so I’m hopeful.
Birthday Angst Redux: We have finally settled on a birthday party plan for Carla, at long last, and after many permutations. It looks NOTHING like what she requested originally, but she seems happy and excited. The theme for her friend party will be succulents, because why not. (Do not ask me how we got to succulents from wolves.) I am trying to gather the courage to call my awesome local plant store to see if they can source party-favor size succulents for the guests. This is an okay thing to ask, right? I mean, I can order them online from multiple places, but I would much rather support a local business. But maybe they won’t be able to do it? Or maybe they won’t be able to do it as inexpensively as the online options? What then? Do I just spell it out up front: I am looking to spent no more than $X on Y small succulents in small pots – is that something you can do?
Also, Carla still wants a wolf theme for her family party. She wants a wolf head cake, and she drew a very detailed picture of her expectation. And look, I know my strengths and abilities and there is no way I can do something like this. Maybe I should just make the cake she wants and buy this cute topper from Etsy and hope she loves it???? I know that I could possibly call a bakery and ask them to do it, but I don’t know of any local bakeries that do this kind of detailed project and my experience with (okay, just the one) local bakery makes me reluctant to put the whole thing in their hands. Also it’s probably too late now, since I’ve been dithering about this for weeks and her birthday is IMMINENT. Please tell me there is some super! easy! way to do a wolf head that I am overlooking. Maybe I could print out a wolf head silhouette and cut a sheet cake in the shape of it and… it’s going to look awful.
One of Carla’s favorite pastimes is crafting. This is a blanket term that, for her, includes without being limited to:
Drawing
Painting
Making things with yarn
Using hot glue to make shapes/structures
Using a 3-D pen to make shapes/structures
Building things out of paper or foam
Cutting up paper into tiny confetti bits for unknown purposes
Diamond painting
Coloring
Gluing pieces of cardboard together
Transforming pens, paper towel rolls, dowels and other items with string, gems, glitter, foam, etc.
Making Barbie furniture
Making clothing for various stuffed animals
Cutting paper into snowflake shapes
Origami
Sculpting animals out of playdough or clay
Making things out of yarn
Sewing scraps of fabric together, to make clothing or purses or stuffed animals
She is extremely creative and derives a lot of joy from crafting. While I might prefer that she were to make things that had some utility, I certainly don’t want to restrict her creative mind. The big problem is that her creations tend to take up a huge amount of space.
So our solution was to create a craft space just for her in the basement. (Slide the image below to see the before and after.)
Based on wonderful suggestions from you, my husband and I went to Home Depot and found a door to use as a craft table. Home Depot has a surprising (to me) variety of doors, and we went with one that was flat, unstained, unfinished, and unadorned in any way. It didn’t even have a hole for a doorknob. Just a flat slab of wood. Best of all, it was fairly inexpensive – around $85. (We are comparing the cost of the door to the cost of an actual table.)
We allowed Carla to choose a paint color for the door, and then the three of us painted it.
We already owned a six-cube organizer shelving unit, so we bought a second one. Then we bought fabric bins to put inside some of the cubes. Once the paint was dry, we set the door horizontally across the shelving units.
The “table” is nice and tall, and big enough to hold A LOT of crafts. We set up Carla’s Cricut machine on one side, put the spinning desktop organizer on the other side, and filled the shelving unit bins with construction paper and foam and painting supplies.
Over time, we have added additional shelving units and fabric bins, and lots of plastic bins and smaller shelving units.
It is a very well-used space.
Two things that I think we still need, but haven’t yet figured out:
Some sort of plastic floor mat. I would love to protect the carpet. But we have only hit roadblocks when trying to find solutions. We originally thought we could get one of those stiff plastic mats that you can put under a desk so that your chair wheels don’t get stuck in the carpet. But to find one that is large enough is prohibitively expensive. We considered finding some heavy plastic sheeting, like the kind you put down when you paint… but I’m not sure that would be sturdy enough for daily use, or how we would affix it well enough to the carpet. We then looked into buying a cheap rug that we could put under the desk… but my main concern about that is that it might create a tripping hazard in the basement. Plus, the cheapest rugs at Home Depot have raw edges, and I think they would fray and fall apart pretty quickly… but I have no idea how to resolve that. So for now, we deal with occasional paint and perpetual glitter on the carpet.
A chair. I think Carla would benefit from having a drafting stool of some sort. She says it’s tiring for her to have to stand when she’s drawing, and I get that. Sometimes, this means that she moves the crafting onto the floor, which I do not like. Maybe a stool of some sort would make using the actual table all the time more appealing. I don’t think she would use a stool all the time… but that’s fine. Then again, the need isn’t so pressing that I’ve done more than idle googling.
The space is usable and Carla loves it and uses it regularly. Overall, it is a success.
My primary complaint about this space is that it is a craftastrophe 95% of the time. It is a horrific mess that encompasses the top of the table and the space underneath and bleeds into the surrounding areas. (Toggle for the mess if you dare.)
The problem is that no matter how many organizational bins and shelves and baskets you buy, they only work if you use them. And my kid doesn’t use them. I have no idea how to help her with this. One of our family mantras is that everything should have a space, and when you are done with something, it needs to return to its space. But that… doesn’t happen.
Either Carla is in the middle of a project and doesn’t want to put it away…
Or she forgets to put it away…
Or she doesn’t know where the item’s “home” is (or, worse, it doesn’t really HAVE a “home”)…
Or she has used the storage bin for some alternate purpose… (This one really annoys me. For instance, we have this little case that has a bunch of separate spaces for small items, like pom poms or gems or paper clips or whatever, and she had removed everything that should be in it and replaced those things with individual small chunks of clay that had since dried out. This kind of “using a storage unit as a toy” is frequent and drives me NUTS.)
I am not sure how to reframe things for Carla so that she understands the how and the why of putting things away… or so that she sees the bins and shelves as Storage Only and not props in her elaborate imaginary scenarios.
If we ever buy another house, my dream is that we dedicate an entire room to Carla’s crafting. A room with our makeshift table, and tons of built-in shelving units that are all labeled and stocked with everything she needs. A room that has a door behind which we can shut the mess.
We had our first snowfall of the season over the weekend! It started with some big, fat, gently falling snowflakes on Saturday and then by Sunday it was wet, heavy, drenching snow. While I miss the beauty of the fall — especially the gorgeous yellow tree in my backyard neighbor’s yard that leans over our hedges into our yard — the trees had long since lost their leaves anyway, so I am pretty pleased with this introduction to winter.
Since I am not doing Dinners This Week, this week (I did a double last week), I thought I would post some updates about random things.
The State of the Ceiling: The plaster expert is gone – after four days in my house instead of the originally-stated two – for good. (I am a little concerned for him, because he told me a lengthy story about how one of his other clients is sexually harassing him. It was a story that I listened to with a Very Serious face, and at the end, I told him, “I am so sorry you are being harassed.” at which point it became clear that he was telling the story in the hopes that I would think it was funny? “I guess I know what it’s like to be a woman now! Har har!” he said, and I nodded very seriously and said, “That must be an eye-opening perspective, although what an awful way to attain it.” He went back to work.) Despite his tendency to talk too much, and about subjects that made me slightly uncomfortable, he did a wonderful job on the ceiling. Here’s a little before and after for you. I’m sorry it isn’t more exciting.
Perhaps I could have made more of an effort to take these photos from the same angle.
Vaccines: My husband and Carla are now both boosted! (They each already got their flu shots several weeks ago.) Despite all plans to the contrary, I forgot Carla’s vaccine card at home. SIGH. What IS it with me doing that??? Her doctor gave me a little sticker to put on her card at home, so it worked out okay and I remain the only one in the universe in our family who has three vaccine cards. Carla had a very mild fever and some arm pain after her vaccine. My husband felt pretty crummy the day after his; the same thing I went through, with the skin sensitivity and the aching and the general yuckiness. No fever though. And now we are all boosted! (As are my parents, who are visiting us VERY SOON!!!! Hooray!)
The State of My Feet: I continue to struggle with plantar fasciitis. I got a third injection a few months ago that, like the other injections, did nothing. I continue to dabble with things that are supposed to help: wearing my brace, icing my feet, doing stretches, rolling a ball beneath my feet, trying to pick up a washcloth in the shower with my toes (they are incapable of doing this). I have purchased foot insoles and special socks. I bought a new pair of shoes. I have even tried just Powering Through, and walking even though my feet ache. Nothing is helping. No wonder; what I have trouble with is trying a variety of things that a variety of people have suggested, and doing it inconsistently and haphazardly. What I need is A Real Plan. I can follow A Plan! But I need a medical professional to tell me The Plan so I can initiate it. However, I don’t think I can go back to the podiatrist. He seems… overly invested in the injections. The person who referred me to him claims he is a miracle worker, and that he worked with her extensively to fix her own plantar fasciitis, but he hasn’t been quite as attentive to me. He just says, “Let’s try another shot.” I want him – or some other foot expert – to say, “This is what you do. Do these specific exercises in this order, daily for 15 minutes. Wear this brace every day for two hours. Buy this specific pair of shoes and wear this specific insert.” Not, “Oh, well, let’s check back in two weeks and maybe you need another injection.” Speaking of needles: a (different) friend who formerly had plantar fasciitis said that acupuncture had cured her, so I have an appointment with her acupuncturist later this month. My husband is being very supportive. I told him I am excited to try it, and he said he is excited for me. I said, “Do you think it will work?” and he said, “No.” Sigh. We’ll see.
Treadmill Desk: My husband bought me a treadmill desk for my birthday waaaaay back in February and I loved it. But then my plantar fasciitis kept getting worse and worse, and I stopped using it. I have every intention of getting back into the habit. Maybe when my feet are in less constant agony. (There will come a time when they are in less constant agony, yes?)
The State of My Skin: I read every single comment with great interest. So many great ideas, so much comforting commiseration. My best guess is that, as many readers suggested, the skin thing is a result of age and/or hormones. Which means I probably just need to tough it out. I have definitely had Skin Stuff before, usually precipitated by trying a new skincare product. But it didn’t seem to linger quite as lengthily as this most recent issue. Anyway, the action I took was to put all my faith in NGS’s comment. She said, “I have terrible eczema and I use Neutrogena wipes to clean my skin every night and don’t worry about the environmental cost because any time I’ve changed it, my skin has gone insane.” So I went back to my old, environmentally detrimental cleansing process. My skin has responded quite well. It is no longer unbearably itchy, and the only remaining problem area is a rough rectangular patch of redness between my eyebrows. This does not mean I am going to give up on trying to find a skincare routine that doesn’t involve disposable wipes. I am going to try again – looking to your comments for ideas. But for now, this has been helping to alleviate my misery.
Calcium: I still worry about Carla’s calcium intake, and the variety of foods she eats in general. Especially in this busy season of our lives, the majority of her diet seems to be chicken nuggets, peas, and rice, interspersed with tacos and the occasional filet of salmon. I know this isn’t the worst combination of foods, and she is still growing and thriving, but… I would like to expand her diet to include other things. She ate a bowl of snow for breakfast yesterday, but that’s not what I mean by “other things.” One of the issues, it seems, is that Carla doesn’t have a great grasp on which foods include which nutrients. Like… she’ll indicate that she thinks white rice has protein in it, or that eggs contain calcium. I’ve tried correcting her in the moment and talking to her more generally about which foods fit into which nutrient group (and I wrote some lists on our whiteboard of which foods, in which nutrient categories, would be good for breakfast), but it’s not sticking. It might be useful to find some book resources, but I’m having a hard time finding anything that doesn’t seem too young. I’ve ordered Are You What You Eat?from our library, and I might order Good Enough to Eat by Lizzy Rockwell from Amazon. We’ll see if they are useful.
Why is it that I can never take a photo with the proper proportions so that it looks straight?!?!?!
Are there any topics I’ve raised in the past that you are burning for me to revisit? (LOL.) If there’s something I brought up awhile ago and you’re curious about the resolution, let me know in the comments or on my Ask Me Anything form and I will post about it.
It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMothis month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.
May is chaos. I was whining to the mom of one of Carla’s classmates recently about busy I feel, and she said in a gritted-teeth, long-suffering voice, “That’s just how May is. And it will get worse as the kids get older.” So that was cheering.
It feels like I was just chugging along, doing my thing, and then suddenly realized that I have fifty deadlines heading my way and I am only partway through each project. Luckily, this isn’t true (at least in the paying work sense; I am on top of those at least). But it FEELS that way. Worse, it feels like everyone else has alsosuddenly had the same realization. My email inbox is jammed with teacher conference requests and reminders to schedule my gutter cleaning and invitations to end-of-year parties and check-ins about summer swimming schedules and gently scolding messages from camp to fill out my kid’s many, many forms already and notifications to update school payment plans and on and on.
We had, in the past week, an invitation to a musical performance at Carla’s school literally three days before the performance itself. And then a notice, seven days ago, from Carla’s teacher, that the class has themed days all this week – and require things like sandals that I had not yet purchased. Then we had to schedule a meeting with one of the teachers to review Carla’s goals for next year. And I (stupidly) signed up to volunteer at a big end-of-school carnival. Not to mention, we get alerts near daily about Covid cases in Carla’s grade. Plus, Carla’s been working on her big Eleanor Roosevelt research project. IT’S A LOT.
I have not felt up to most things lately – reading, cooking, planning meals, blogging – but I miss those things (except planning meals). So let’s try a random info dump. I will try not to complain TOO much, but no promises.
Zoom Awkwardness: While I am deeply, sincerely grateful for the ability to meet with people virtually, I wish someone would figure out how to solve the end-of-meeting awkwardness. You know what I mean. When you have all already said goodbye, but then you have to fumble around to find the button that ends the meeting. I realize that this awkward moment lasts maybe five seconds, but I find it excruciating. Often, I find myself distracted in the last moments of the meeting itself because I am trying to plan my exit in the quickest possible way. But no. Even if I can find the “end meeting” button ahead of time, I inevitably fumble it, or forget that I’ve carefully hovered my cursor over it for exactly that purpose, or the “are you sure?” box pops up and I just want to die of embarrassment. I realize this may not be as big a deal to some people as it is to me, and obviously I have lived to zoom again, but I HATE IT. Just let me out of this virtual discomfort!
End of Year Teacher Gift: Every year, our Room Parent (i.e. Room Mom) collects money for a class gift. Every year, I dutifully send in money. Every year, I fret and worry and scour Etsy for an additional gift that my kid can give to her teacher, personally, on top of the considerable amount we have already sent in. Every year, I decide that the collective gift is BETTER – usually it’s a gift card, and I’m guessing it is much more useful/appreciated by the teacher than whatever dumb crap I could come up with – and exit Etsy without buying the personalized water bottle/bookmark/coffee mug I was pondering. And yet, despite going through this for SIX YEARS NOW, I inevitably find myself in the last week of school, fretting and fretting about the possibility of being the ONLY person who doesn’t double gift with a physical gift in addition to the cash contribution.
Road Trip: I am doing a right terrible job of Not Complaining, so let’s talk about something positive. My husband and Carla and I are going on a Road Trip this summer!!!! Aside from the astronomical cost of gas, I am really excited about our Road Trip. (Yes, I am capitalizing it.) We finalized all our hotel stays over the weekend, and so now I am gleefully shopping for Road Trip Necessities. This is what my father refers to as a “Tool Buying Opportunity,” which is part of what makes the planning portion of something (an event, a hobby) as enjoyable as or more enjoyable than the actual thing itself. My husband is researching the best family audiobooks to buy (or check out from our library) for our trip, and I love that this is the way his trip planning excitement manifests. He has already played a few samples to Carla, so that they can figure out whether she’ll have trouble understanding the accent of the narrator.
Birthday Planning Stagnation: Despite ALL of your lovely suggestions, I have made ZERO progress toward planning Carla’s birthday party. Zero. This fills me with dread and anxiety. However, I will say that with every confident, encouraging comment about hosting a party here, I grew more and more entrenched in my certainty that having a party in my home is NOT the right way to go. So that was extremely helpful, and I am so appreciative. I genuinely envy those readers who are so easy-breezy about hosting an in-home birthday party. You make it sound so easy! And fun! And like the better choice! But my gut was clear: NO. So whatever we end up doing, it will be somewhere else. Your kind, helpful suggestions also clarified for me something that I already knew – but did not know I felt with such stringency – which is that I loathe trampoline parks. We used to take Carla when she was smaller, because it was a great way to release her endless reserves of energy in the dragging months of winter. But even then I always felt like I had to be careful not to touch ANYTHING, and I would always through Carla in the tub and her clothing in the washing machine the instant we returned home. Perhaps this speaks more to the cleanliness of my local trampoline park than to anything else, but since that’s what we have available, I am going to skip it. So I suppose even if I haven’t made any forward progress, I am at the very least narrowing the field. Thank you so much for your help, even if you may feel like I am ignoring your very helpful recommendations. Your advice is helpful nonetheless.
Handyman: In other good news, I finally finally got a handyman to not only return my call, but to come over and look at my long list of projects!!!! He seems great. He reviewed things and took measurements, and was very clear on things he can/will do and things he cannot/won’t. The most important result, though, is that he CAN and WILL repair our ceiling. I don’t know if I’ve described our ceiling hole in this space, but I am going to do so now in case you want to skip to the next equally riveting bullet. It is not a hole, per se. It is more like a place where the plaster has declined to provide its normal coverage. The plaster is peeling away from whatever material forms the ceiling, and so it looks like a hole. We have had the spot examined several times by a plumber (and by our fathers), and it does not appear to be a leak. And it’s been there for YEARS, so I think we would know by now. But this stupid plaster lapse makes me so self-conscious about our house. It looks terrible, and it’s right above the kitchen table, and I hate it. And now it will be fixed!!!! Of course, there is no scheduled date for the fixing; the handyman warned me he is booked out for several weeks. So I guess now I am just hoping he really will send me an estimate and offer some dates. I almost don’t care what it will cost because I want it fixed. But then again, I have no idea what this kind of thing should cost, so… I will report back on whether it is a swallowable amount or something that kicks me in the gut and forces me to live with the stupid hole for longer. Like I said, we’ve been living with it for YEARS, so it shouldn’t be such a big deal to keep on living with it. But at some point in the past few months, I have reached some sort of tell-tale heart level of complete inability to co-exist with this thing for one second longer.
Calendar Bedlam: Recently, I am having an issue that makes me think my mind is on a steep decline. I keep making plans, putting them in EMPTY SPOTS in my calendar, and then realizing – sometime later – that I have double booked myself. Example 1: A friend invites me to a performance. I check the calendar and see I have plans that night. I decline. Later, a friend invites me to dinner. I check the calendar and see I am free, so I accept. The next time I talk to the performer friend, she mentions the day of her performance… which is on the day I originally had free but now do not. Example 2: I set a playdate for Carla. The next day, I notice that she in fact has an orthodontist appointment that day, so I have to reschedule the playdate. Example 3: I have to do a mandatory nicotine test per our insurance, so I schedule it in an empty spot on the calendar. I get a reminder for the test at the same time I get a reminder for a meeting with Carla’s teacher, because I have scheduled them in the same time slot. WHY AM I DOING THIS AND HOW CAN I STOP.
Dirty Martinis: I recently learned the joy and beauty of a very, very dirty martini. My whole life, I have been staunchly anti-vodka, but it seems that may be because I have only ever had cheap vodka? I recently had a martini with really good, smooth vodka and it was delicious. Then I made one at home, with the fancy expensive vodka my father-in-law drinks, and it was also delicious. I am now out of olive juice.
Jury Duty: My stint of jury duty went GREAT. The summons said that we needed to be available for five days, beginning on a Monday. So I prepared to be gone that entire week. When I did jury duty several years ago, I went in on a Monday, sat around all day, and then was called to a courtroom near the end of the day. I wasn’t selected for that jury, but I was released from jury duty for the rest of the week. This time, you call a number in advance of your service and figure out if your jury number has been selected for that day. I got to miss two days, but my number was called for Wednesday. Then I arrived at the courthouse, sat around all day, and… was released. I didn’t have to go back at all! It was… kind of pleasant? Of course, the anticipation was the dreadful part. I had to worry about childcare for Carla for the whole week, and then I had to worry about driving on a freeway during rush hour, and I had to worry about parking downtown. But once I had Carla stowed at school, had made it downtown, parked, and successfully made it to the courthouse, it was fine! Pleasant, even! It was a beautiful day and we got ninety minutes (!!!!) for our lunch hour, so I got something from Starbucks and walked around downtown. I was even a teeny bit disappointed that I didn’t get selected for a case – I think it would be interesting to serve on a jury. The biggest inconvenience of the week, it turned out, was that I kept having to email the school to let them know that Carla would or wouldn’t be arriving early for babysitting services.
Step Off: My watch has developed quite an overblown sense of its own roll in my life lately. Constantly telling me to stop and breathe, or noting that I am usually more active at this time of day what is up????, or advising me that I can “still do it!” if I just take a brisk 20-minute walk at 11:15 pm on a weekday. And now this??? Stay in your lane, watch. I am doing the best that I can.
Keto Stall: I feel the need to give you a keto update. During my extravagant jury duty lunch hour, I ordered coffee with cream (despite the fact that I hate coffee) and a pre-made lunch kit that seemed to be fairly keto-friendly: salami, cheese, and some nuts/dried fruit that I ate even though I’m sure it was full of sugar. I did not eat the crackers. Anyway: I continue to follow a low-carb plan. And I have completely stalled. It is SO frustrating. I am doing the plan, I am eating the high-protein/high-fat foods. I am in ketosis. And yet my weight has gone nowhere. It wouldn’t be so terrible except that I HATE it. Food is not fun or enjoyable. I do not look forward to meals, and in fact actively dread them. I cannot stand to plan meals, because they are inevitably some variation on meat + veg, or else they are complicated and frequently end up tasting awful. I am constantly asking my husband what I should make for dinner. I am not having fun, I am not losing weight, it is all awful. And yet any time I LOOK at a carb, I instantly gain two pounds. So I don’t think I’m ready to quit keto either. At least I am maintaining this not-quite-ten-percent-of-my-bodyweight weight loss. ARGH.
A Good Salad: I did make a really good salad recently. It was arugula (yum) and spinach (yuck), heavily weighted on the arugula side for me and on the spinach side for my husband (who dislikes arugula). I added goat cheese, blueberries, strawberries, a sprinkling of sliced almonds, and grilled chicken. And then I added balsamic dressing because I love dressing as much as I love sauce. (Perhaps this is causing the stall in the previous bullet, perhaps indeed, although I don’t eat salads often because of the dressing factor.)
Strawberry Marketing: The strawberries in the aforementioned salad were PINK. My grocery store had a big display and they had a lot of marketing to assure customers that the strawberries are fully ripe! And taste like pineapple! I had to try them. My husband wondered if they might taste like underripe strawberries and indeed they did. They were fine with some goat cheese and balsamic dressing though, but NOT worth $6.99 per container when I can buy actual ripe strawberry tasting strawberries for $3.50. Between these berries and the miniature iceberg lettuces, produce marketers are really working hard for their money, let me tell you.
Garden Inertia: Let us turn to another pleasant topic, which is gardening. Of which I have also done ZERO. What the hell am I doing with my time, if I am not cooking or gardening or planning Carla’s birthday party? I am fretting and wringing my hands and going in circles is what. We have people coming for dinner this weekend, so now I am suddenly feeling Very Urgent about having at least some flowers in pots. It’s not like my “garden” is anything impressive. But I do like to have a few pots with flowers and I need to do that. Perhaps Carla and I will go after school.
Spring Shopping Syndrome: In addition to fretting/hand wringing, I have been struck by Spring Shopping Syndrome. You are familiar with this yes? The point at which the weather begins to edge carefully toward warmth and suddenly you hate every single item of clothing you own? I have been buying (and then returning) things with great abandon. Loft has been my latest obsession, and they know it: they keep emailing me with adorable dresses front and center, and so I order the dress and then it doesn’t fit and I take it back. But, to get free shipping, I added on a cute blouse, and that DID fit, so now I have that sweet, sweet dopamine rush of clicking “buy” alongside the possibility, however small, that the item I bought will be cute, which makes me want to repeat the process all over again. Interesting how I am able to analyze this behavior and see it for what it is and yet I still can’t stop/won’t stop.
All right, that’s it for now my dear Internet.
What’s clogging your calendar this month? Have you made any springy purchases? Tell me which deer-proof flowers to buy for my garden.
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life of a doctor's wife 